Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

On React and WordPress

ma.tt

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 212 posts

Re: On React and WordPress

#171

Post by notacoward »

twiddo wrote: post #167
notacoward wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It refers to all patents as potential triggers, not as potential consequences, and that still doesn't allow a patent license to nullify a separate copyright license. I think it's scoped a lot more narrowly than you are trying to imply. I've provided detailed reasoning for my position. Feel free to reciprocate.

Suing Facebook for an unrelated patent will make any software you use that may only work with ANY Facebook patented works useless. It doesn't discriminate to this project. They retain first strike however, so all the people saying this is great because patent litigation is bad, Facebook still has first-strike here. Also, the copyright license isn't useful unless you have complete knowledge of Facebook's patent portfo…

You're still assuming, contrary to all fact and common sense, that either the copyright license or the implicit patent license are affected in any way by what happens to the explicit patent license. I've explained elsewhere in this thread why that's not true. As long as you continue to base your argument on that assumption, without even acknowledging (let alone addressing) explanations to the contrary, that argument is a waste of everyone's time.

Re: On React and WordPress

#172

Post by [deleted] »

yawaramin wrote: post #38
mox1 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the blog post? His main concern is suddenly updating ~25% of all websites to "include" the React license. Imagine Microsoft running a small WordPress site off in the distance somewhere that takes the Wordpress + React update. Tadaa, MS is now in theory bound by the FB patent clause. He doesn't want to be responsible for the potential legal liability of encumbering 25% of the internet with a new license a…

Microsoft is already using React in public-facing stuff.

[deleted]

Re: On React and WordPress

#173

Post by TheCoelacanth »

andybak wrote: post #93
kyriakos wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think preact since they already used react and will only delay them a few weeks preact seems like the more sensible option

I'm unclear on whether Preact solves the issue. On one hand - it's close that it probably infringes on the any patents that cover React On the other - it's not infringing patents that scares people - it's the patent clause in the React licence. If you're not using React, you're not accepting this licence. So Preact seems like it would safe enough - unless you believe that Facebook would one day go on the offensive wi…

If you assume that Preact infringes any patents that React does, it seems like you are strictly worse off using Preact than using React.

If Facebook goes on the offensive, you are protected if you use React but not if you use Preact.

If you sue Facebook for patent infringement and they use their patents defensively, you are in exactly the same situation using Preact as you are using React; you don't have a license for the patents in either case.

Re: On React and WordPress

#174

Post by twiddo »

notacoward wrote: post #171
twiddo wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suing Facebook for an unrelated patent will make any software you use that may only work with ANY Facebook patented works useless. It doesn't discriminate to this project. They retain first strike however, so all the people saying this is great because patent litigation is bad, Facebook still has first-strike here. Also, the copyright license isn't useful unless you have complete knowledge of Facebook's patent portfo…

You're still assuming , contrary to all fact and common sense, that either the copyright license or the implicit patent license are affected in any way by what happens to the explicit patent license. I've explained elsewhere in this thread why that's not true. As long as you continue to base your argument on that assumption, without even acknowledging (let alone addressing) explanations to the contrary, that argument…

> You're still assuming, contrary to all fact and common sense, that either the copyright license or the implicit patent license are affected in any way by what happens to the explicit patent license.

Why would it be unreasonable to assume that the explicit clause in a contract exists to override the implicit clause? Isn't that kind of the point of explicitly enumerating cases? Where, elsewhere in this thread, do you explain this?

And your aggressive tone is unexpected.

Edit: Also, I didn't say the copyright grant was affected, but if you don't have a grant to use a patent that the software flexes.... ? Being concerned vs. assuming flowers seems safer in untested legal waters.

Re: On React and WordPress

#175

Post by carussell »

Illniyar wrote: post #127
halfteatree wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this: how are you not strictly better off with the patent grant? This whole fiasco seems to be nothing but FUD. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14780979 tl;dr: License with no patent grant: Facebook can sue you for infringing patents, even if you are using a clone! License with patent grant: Facebook cannot sue you for infringing patents, unless you do it first.

There are two camps - those who believe that an open source license implicitly provides patent grants and those who believe an open source license does not allow patent use. Until such a thing is tested in court (in each country) both ideas have merit. The patent grant is also worded a bit unclearly - implying that if you sue facebook you will lose the copyright, not only the patent right, to use React. Even though t…

> those who believe that an open source license implicitly provides patent grants and those who believe an open source license does not allow patent use

There's a third camp: people who think this is a false dichotomy that necessarily requires those endorsing it to have an oversimplified understanding of IP law.

Re: On React and WordPress

#176

Post by ungzd »

ryanswapp wrote: post #3
ljoshua wrote: post #2

It's too bad that this particular point has become an issue with so many good open source projects. I still think that the risk, even for startups considering acquisition exits, is low (see this great post from a patent/IP attorney [1]), but the fact that it's enough to cause players like the ASF and WordPress to move away from it just means fewer players and less innovation in the ecosystem. IANAL, but I wish the la…

I agree that the risk of running into legal trouble with Facebook is pretty low for many companies. However, that doesn't make it feel any less dirty. It would be nice if the lawyers at Facebook would take a chill pill on this one but that will never happen. It will be interesting to see where OSS projects from Facebook go moving forward given that the noise surrounding their patent clause seems to get louder and lou…

If these mysterious patents are about things like "virtual DOM", comparing trees of state or something derived from FRP, then using Vue, Preact, Angular 2, Cycle, Riot, Elm, reflex-dom is not more patent-safe. Moreover, they can sue you even if you are not suing them.

It's time to move back to jQuery and Prototype.js. Let's wait 20-30 years until these patents expire so everyone finally can use these nice state-management things.

Re: On React and WordPress

#177

Post by whipoodle »

rk06 wrote: post #160
pluma wrote: post #115

People who ridicule the notion of FUD causing actual harm, pay attention: this is a perfect example of the chilling effects of FUD on software projects. Automattic didn't drop React because it doesn't like the license. Automattic dropped React because the FUD surrounding React's license might rub off on them (and WordPress). It's their right to do so and it's in the best interest of WordPress to avoid being dragged i…

It was FUD before Apache Foundation placed React's license as Category X. Now, it is not.

Why?

Re: On React and WordPress

#178

Post by whipoodle »

hoodoof wrote: post #35

Lawyers. They sure are spoiling the success for the React folks. You can bet Facebook has alot of them and you can bet their political influence is strong with the upper management. Lawyer: "this thing, this point in the contract, it's VERY VERY important". The more lawyers you get in the room, the more beard pulling, wailing and hand wringing there would be about the dire, dire consequences of taking this stupid cla…

Facebook uses React for their own projects. To them, if more people use it that's probably great and all, but I don't think they are really hurt by people choosing not to use it. They clearly would rather keep their license as it is than change it to win over new React users.

Re: On React and WordPress

#179

Post by notacoward »

twiddo wrote: post #174
notacoward wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're still assuming , contrary to all fact and common sense, that either the copyright license or the implicit patent license are affected in any way by what happens to the explicit patent license. I've explained elsewhere in this thread why that's not true. As long as you continue to base your argument on that assumption, without even acknowledging (let alone addressing) explanations to the contrary, that argument…

> You're still assuming, contrary to all fact and common sense, that either the copyright license or the implicit patent license are affected in any way by what happens to the explicit patent license. Why would it be unreasonable to assume that the explicit clause in a contract exists to override the implicit clause? Isn't that kind of the point of explicitly enumerating cases? Where, elsewhere in this thread, do you…

> Isn't that kind of the point of explicitly enumerating cases?

No. Explicit enumeration is also done to address things that are missing or ambiguous. If the intent is to replace or negate something that would otherwise be true, that's usually explicit too. "Superseding all other agreements, express or implied..." or some such.

> Where, elsewhere in this thread, do you explain this?

Mostly in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15257004 and its descendants. Other examples are not hard to find from my profile (two clicks).

> And your aggressive tone is unexpected.

When I'm faced with passive-aggressive behavior, such as persistently making untrue claims even after they've been challenged or even flat-out refuted, I get a bit active-aggressive.

> Being concerned vs. assuming flowers seems safer in untested legal waters.

Then you should apply that concern to all BSD-licensed software. Ditto for MIT license, and others that come with no explicit patent permission at all. All they have is the implicit permission necessary to support the copyright license (which is otherwise separate). The case for that is strong, but it's completely independent of the explicit license. Why not have both? Why take the risk of relying on one alone?

Re: On React and WordPress

#180

Post by carussell »

Flenser wrote: post #109
zodiac wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an article about that recently - it wasn't proactively pushing an agenda so much as, if FB wanted to release any software as OS, without the grant, the lawyers would have had to review every commit to avoid violating someone else's patent.

Do you have a link? That would be interesting to read.

https://medium.com/@ji/the-react-license-for-founders-and-ct...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15214508

Post reply on HN